


A Very Muppet Conundrum

by SbiderSlut (BlackCoffeeCat)



Series: Sbider's Tony Stark Bingo 2019 [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: And the assumption that they're gay for eachother, BECAUSE THEY ARE, Crack, Engaged Starker, Established Relationship, Exactly One(1) Bert and Ernie Reference, Fluff, M/M, Muppets (Muppets), peter is 18+
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-25 04:55:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17718461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackCoffeeCat/pseuds/SbiderSlut
Summary: In which Tony Stark wakes up, and the world has become a Sesame Street set.Long story short: Everyone, including his fiancé, looks like a Muppet.Yes, it is as ridiculous at it sounds.---Fill for Tony Stark Bingo 2019 (S3 - Humor)





	A Very Muppet Conundrum

**Author's Note:**

> I am not a humor writer. At all. As in, SNL cast members and people of the improv community probably cross to the other side of the street when they see me strutting, I'm so unfunny. So upon getting my beautiful bingo card, I wanted to get my Humor square out of the way ASAP with a decent fill. 
> 
> Uh, this madness is what resulted. 
> 
> (As you can probably guess, I grew up on a diet of late nineties and early 2000's children's programming. Disney Channel (the GOOD Disney Channell), PBS, Cartoon Network, etc etc. But I will always love Sesame Street.) 
> 
> I am sorry, but also. I'll let this speak for itself.

The ‘Playboy’ part of Genius-Billionaire-Playboy-Philanthropist has ensured that Tony Stark's woken up in more than his fair share of strange situations. He’s woken up in a dumpster before. And under a bed, cuddling up with dust bunnies. In the bed of a pickup truck. Under a dogpile of nude people.

This.... still takes the cake.

“Honey?” Peter’s voice slowly rouses him out of his sleep. “We have a S.H.I.E.L.D. meeting today, remember? We should get up soon.” Soft hands pat at his arm. Soft… _felt-like_ hands. Nothing like Peter’s gentle fingers and trimmed nails. No, instead, it feels like Tony’s being pawed at by a shitty glove of some sort.

“Babe -- what are you--?” Tony rolls over to face his boyfriend. He freezes. Blinks. Rubs his face against his pillow to get the sleep-sand out of his eyes, because he must be seeing things. And blinks again.

And screams.

In a rather high pitch.

And Peter -- well, _it_ certainly has Peter’s voice -- responds with a startled shriek. “Tony, what? What?”

“You -- you.” Tony sits back and points with a shaking hand. He gasps and gapes like a fish, and keeps staring because holy shit, that is a goddamn _Muppet_ that most definitely looks like Peter, with felt hair and giant googly eyes, and a rounded head. Its tiny Muppet body even is wearing a little tee-shirt with an atom on it.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” the fucking Muppet asks.

“M-Muppet,” Tony stutters, in shock. “You -- you’re a Muppet.”

“I’m a what?”

“A Muppet.”

Giant, guileless, Muppet eyes regard Tony with curiosity, and then the Muppet mouth -- yep, that giant split mouth that looks like a watermelon with a slice missing -- opens and says, in Peter’s voice, “Okay…”

“No, I swear to fucking god,” Tony says, before he can be accused of being insane. “You’re a Muppet right now. You have a giant head, and giant eyes, and hair made out of brown felt and I’m not fucking joking -- I wish I was.”

There’s a pause where Tony can assume that Peter blinks, except he (it? he?) has no eyelids in this form. And then, Peter says, “So, I’m a Muppet.” Which, at least he’s not accusing Tony of collecting that last french fry he needs to complete his Happy Meal of insanity.

“Yes, I swear to god. And I don’t believe in god, so I swear to motherfucking Thor, that you --” Tony pauses. Backs up a few. And _really_ thinks. “ _Thor_ ,” he hisses.

“Thor?”

“Well, his son-of-a-bitch brother.”

There is a loud _pop_ , a flash of cartoonish green smoke, and then the spine-crawling sound an all-too-familiar smarmy voice. “You called?”

Why, _oh why_ , Tony questions. What could he have _possibly_ done in this life -- or any life -- to warrant the hellish image that is Muppet Loki? He’d never dare entertain the thought, let alone actually want to see it.

He’ll never be the same again.

How a Muppet can manage to still look so _evil_ , Tony will never understand. It’s a mystery. But yes, there is a smirk there, and downward-pointed eyebrows that give Loki’s felt visage a particularly devious look. “Stark,” the Muppet says, in lieu of a greeting.

“You did this,” Tony snarls.

“Was that a question, Stark?”

“Reverse this right now, you motherfucker.”

“I actually cannot,” Loki says, and he sounds so pleased that Tony has to fight down the urge to strangle the god’s skinny Muppet neck and shake him around violently until his round head goes flying off. “I set the spell to last seven days -- much like that one Midgardian movie where the viewer of a recording dies seven days after watching it. Wouldn’t you say this is preferable? You will not die.”

It’s both a good point and a terrible point. On one hand, Tony would rather not bite the dust soon -- he’s _finally_ headed in a happier direction after a lifetime of shit, most of that thanks to Peter. He needs time to cash in and enjoy a decent life. Besides, he has wedding to look forward to.

But also, a week with _this_ sounds unbearable in a way nothing else is -- and he’s held up under torture and been turned into a woman before. He’s been stuck in Steve’s body for half a month before.

Tony Stark has been through several people’s shares of tough shit. He's had multiple helpings at the buffet of bad life experiences, and a few pieces of dessert on top of that.

Still, though. _Muppet vision_? That’s some very extraordinary level of fucked up and Tony’s not sure how he’s supposed to last a week like this without going absolutely off the rails. He’s also gotta have a serious discussion with whoever has been sponsoring Loki’s education on Midgardian media, because _Muppets_ and _The Ring_? What fresh hell?

“You literally can’t fix this?” Tony asks, feeling hysteria edge into his voice. “How am I supposed to deal with everyone looking like this for a week?” He turns to Peter, who’s been contemplatively watching the exchange and says, in horrified disbelief, “My fiancé is a Muppet.”

“Are you?” Peter asks, suddenly, out of nowhere.

“What?”

“Are you a Muppet?” Peter asks. “If you look at yourself.”

Tony glances down at himself and feels vaguely sick. “Yes. My hands… my fucking hands.”

“Do they feel like Muppet hands?”

Tony touches his own face. “Yes. Shit, they’re so fuzzy. But if I -- ” He reaches out to touch Peter’s hands. He thinks, intensely, about wrapping his fingers around Peter’s wrist and lifting, and watches at it happens -- his own paw of a hand moves, and Peter’s moves with him. “I can do stuff that requires fingers, without using actual fingers. How the fuck does this work? How do I use my fingers when I have none?” He rubbernecks to glare at the culprit. “Explain.”

“Suspension of disbelief,” Loki supplies. “Muppets do extraordinary things without fingers, so I designed the spell to allow you all the capabilities of a Muppet while appearing to have no fingers.”

“And you did all of this, why?”

“I was bored.”

Frankly, after enough altercations with Thor’s younger brother, Tony is no longer shocked that the demigod causes chaos for the simple joy of causing chaos. He sighs. “Fine. Do you want to bargain? What do I do to get you to lift it?”

“I knew you would try to bargain, so I designed the spell to be unliftable. Only time will resolve it.”

“Of course you did. There’s nothing you can do?”

“Correct.”

Tony’s just about to resign himself to a week of utter dejection when Peter pipes up. “You, uh, can’t lift the spell. But can you perform it again?”

It takes the barest of seconds for it to click because _of course_ Peter fucking would. Tony knows the type of man he proposed to. He knows how his fiancé thinks. “Honey, no. You don’t have to do that. One case of Muppet vision already too many.”

Peter shrugs. “I mean, it will bother me more if we’re seeing different things at this point. Don’t you think?”

Well, Tony can’t argue with that. It’s a rather valid point.

“Also, I like Muppets. I think it’ll be fun.”

Also, that. Peter’s raved about growing up with a television diet of Sesame Street before. If there’s one person on the planet who’d feel any amount of excitement about seeing the world through a Muppet lens, that person is Peter Parker. _God_ , this man.

“Your choice,” Tony relents with a sigh, even as his heart swells. Words can’t describe Tony Stark’s particular, one-of-a-kind brand of fondness and love for Peter Parker. But also, Peter is his own special kind of ridiculous. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Peter smiles sheepishly and turns to Loki. “Could you?” he asks.

There’s a long pause, before Loki sighs. “Humans,” he mutters, rolling his eyes. “So soft and pathetic.”

“Thanks,” Tony drawls, as Loki snaps his fingers.

Nothing happens.

“Is that it? No flashes? No nothing? I thought you were more dramatic.”

“Oh, excuse me,” Loki drawls, and that’s accompanied by a bright flash and loud _pop_ that temporarily blinds Tony’s vision.

(There may be a day when Tony learns to keep his fat mouth shut around magicians, especially ones with a mischievous streak and a history of evil deeds. Today is not that day. That day may very well never come.)

(Oh well. It’s not like Peter fell in love with Tony for his common sense or self-control.)

When Tony’s vision finally clears, there’s no trace of Loki left to be seen. Typical.

Peter starts to giggle, quiet and disbelieving at first, but then a little hysterical.

“Honey?” Tony asks, warily. He may be just a tiny man with a big brain, who comes in dead last in an arm wrestling competition with his teammates, but he will happily rip Loki apart with his bare hands if the god does something to mess with Peter.

Turns out, it’s nothing that sinister, though.

“This is awesome,” Peter marvels. “Your beard. As a Muppet. Oh my god.” His giant head jiggles around in a laughing motion, and Tony finds himself covering his own face and chuckling because _fuck_ , that’s cute. He’s seen Elmo flail around in that exact way, before. Peter just laughs harder. “Oh god, you look funny when you laugh,” Peter says.

“So do you,” Tony cackles.

He’s not sure how much time passes, but for a long time, they just face one another and completely lose it in raucous laughter because, well, they’re _Muppets_.

And okay, maybe Peter was onto something with asking to be spelled; the idea of seven days of seeing the world as the set of Sesame Street suddenly doesn’t seem so terrible. If Peter is around to laugh at Pepper (and _oh god,_ they’ve gotta call everyone in because when are they ever gonna get the chance to see their friends and family in Muppet form again?) with Tony and find a wry kind of amusement in their impossible predicament, it’s not so bad.

But also, Tony has always thought, in full ardency, that there’s nothing he wouldn’t willingly weather if Peter were with him. This is no different.

“God I love you,” Tony laughs. “I fucking love you.”

“Even as a Muppet?”

“Yes, even as a Muppet.”

“Good.” Peter snuggles up to Tony; objectively speaking, that’s absolutely adorable on some inhuman level because they are quite _literally_ inhuman for the time being.

“I love you, too,” Peter murmurs. “You’re the Bert to my Ernie.”

“I’m _Bert_? Why am I Bert?”

“As if you could be Ernie?”

Tony mulls it over for a second, and then relents with a fond fluttering in his stomach. “You’re right, you’re right.”

He presses a kiss to Peter’s lips -- the knocking of felt surface against round surface and a smooching noise despite the fact that their split Muppet mouths don’t even touch.

“The Bert to your Ernie.”

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that happened. Thank you so much for reading, and I'd love to hear what you think of, uh, this.
> 
> \---
> 
> I am [SbiderSlut](http://sbiderslut.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. Come by and say hi! 💖💕


End file.
